Silver is trading at $34.12/oz, €26.43/oz and £21.40/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,616.00/oz, palladium at $660.50/oz and rhodium at $1,060/oz.

Gold rose $21.80 or 1.26% in New York on Friday and closed at $1,751.20. Silver hit a high of $34.16 and finished with a gain of 2.19%. Gold was up 2.28% for the week and silver soared 5.61% for the week.

Gold edged down on a Monday as speculators took their profits as prices rallied on thin volumes on Friday to their highest in a month on technical buying. A strong fall in the greenback triggered rapid gains in commodities and options-related buying on Friday.

Tonight US Congress will meet to attempt to devise a plan to avert the US fiscal cliff which will throw the US into a spiral of tax hikes and budgetary cuts that will lead the US economy deeper into a recession this January.

Another short term ‘resolution’ will almost certainly be achieved which will allow the US to keep spending like a broke drunken sailor and which will again store up far greater fiscal and monetary problems. The scale of these deep rooted structural challenges is so great that they are likely to affect the US sooner rather than later.

The euro racked up a seven month high against the yen and is holding near a one month high against the US dollar as the meetings amongst Greek creditors continue and hope to reach an outcome today.

Greece’s goal is reducing the 190% debt to GDP ratio to a more manageable 120% in eight to ten years. The dilemma is that the IMF and eurozone finance ministers want to cease payments until a new deal is agreed because they have no guarantee that the financing won’t continue indefinitely.

Can Greek debt become manageable without creditors writing off some of the loans? France and Italy would vote to reduce interest repayments on already granted loans while other countries like Germany would not.

A consensus was reached when German central bank governor Jens Weidmann suggested that Greece could "earn" a reduction in debt it owes to euro zone governments in a few years if it diligently implements all the agreed reforms. The European Commission also supports this view.

Global investment demand for gold remains robust with the amount in exchange-traded products backed by the metal rising 0.1% to 2,606.3 metric tons.

Meanwhile reports of the death of the Indian gold buyer have again been greatly exaggerated as India's net gold import for domestic consumption is likely to be about 800 tonnes this year following a pick-up in demand during the festive season, according to the World Gold Council (WGC).

Last year, the net import for domestic consumption was 969 tonnes. This is a significant fall but not surprising considering the sharply rising price. It shows that the Indian cultural attachment to gold will continue and India may be becoming acclimatised to higher gold prices.

This week US economic data for Tuesday include Durable Orders, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index, Consumer Confidence, and the FHFA Housing Price Index. On Wednesday, New Home Sales and the Fed’s Beige Book are published. On Thursday, Initial Jobless Claims, GDP, and Pending Home Sales can be viewed. Friday’s data is Personal Income and Spending, Core PCE Prices, and Chicago PMI.

Gold deposits in Turkey have grown from 3.1 billion liras to 16 billion liras in the past year, Bloomberg reported on news reported in the daily Turkish newspaper Aksam which cited Denizbank AS gold banking group manager Cem Turgut Gelgor.

According to the Turkish bank Denizbank, one of the largest in Turkey, it collected 1.5 tons of gold in 7 months.

Deposits have increased from 500 kg to over 6 tons or over 192,000 ounces (worth some €260 million) over an unspecified period.

Kuveyt Turk Katilim Bankasi AS has added 3.8 tons of gold, Aksam quotes Kuveyt Turk product development group manager Mustafa Dereci as saying. Dereci said that Kuveyt Turk is providing new products such as “gold from the ATM.”

The World Gold Council estimates that there are around 5,000 tons of gold remaining outside the financial system, gold which the Turkish people have prudently accumulated over the years as a store of wealth to protect from currency depreciation and debasement.

The gold wholesaler is meeting regularly with jewelers and banks in effort to draw unregistered gold assets into financial system.

Separately Turkey is aiming to position itself as a leading player in the gold jewellery and bullion industry by also becoming one of the leading gold and precious metal refining countries in the world.

Turkey is at a level to compete with international gold refining centers like Germany and Switzerland, Istanbul Gold Exchange deputy chairman Osman Sarac said today according to Dunya newspaper.

Turkey imports scrap gold mostly from Germany and the United Arab Emirates, the gold is turned into standard bullion coins and bars in Turkish refineries and exported.

Turkey imported 114.8 tons of gold by Nov. 14 this year, of which 46.6 tons was scrap, according to Istanbul Gold Exchange data.

Doomer goldbugs are so funny. First it was 'hyperinflation' that was going to make gold and silver go to the moon. Then it was the end of 'manipulation' by the 'Bullion Banks'. And now all of a sudden it's depositors hoarding gold because of 'financial collapse'. Where is $2000 an ounce? Goldbugs have been predicting $2000 gold and financial armageddon for years, and nothing has happened. It's funny how many conspiracy theories goldbugs will invent to satisfy their fantasies of becoming kings of the universe.

Anyone see a scenario where real interest rates go positive in the near future? Far future?

The Fed recently said that interest rates will remain about where they are until at least mid 2015. The low rates will likely be extended again unless the Fed/treasury/gov decide to jack rates and destroy what is left of the economy, the banking system and the world financial system. Anyone predicting this outcome?

Anyone who has been to Hong Kong recently KNOWS the Indians have not stopped buying gold. Just walk into one of their gold stores---it's packed with Indians buying very large amounts of the yellow metal. Where they store it once bought I have no idea. I don't know if they store it in HK or drag it back to India or some other location. Maybe Banzai can tell us.

To MDB and all the other bankster bendovers: global gold production in total will decline going forward due to declining grades mined and exponentially increased costs. I know that it's very difficult for some of you trolls to understand financial reports, but the most recent from the gold miners might be illuminating. Further, the amount available to the free market will fall even more due to de facto and/or de jure nationalization and/or expropriation. Virtually 40%+ of all global production is withheld from the free market; notably by Russia and China. Even disinformation pundits will acknowledge that demand is up. The result will be classic Econ 101; rising prices. Oh sorry----you guys never took an economics course---my bad.

This is all quite farcical, and totally in keeping with the [deserved] notoriety of banksters the world over...

a news wire story comes out of Istanbul and a gullible dupe like GoldCore picks it up and adds to the myth: Turkey is doing something creative with it's massive private gold holdings....

when the last story from Bloomberg(about a month ago now) got into the western precious metals media outlets, I got seriously interested: not wanting to dispose of any of my AU, but definitely willing to make it work for me during this tedious time of manipulated statis, I marched off to all the mentioned banks in the story(IS and GARANTI) and politely asked where and when I could get my "gold-backed credit card" and my "gold-backed loan," using my shiny Cumhurriyet 22k coins as collateral...crickets....I even emailed the reporter of the piece who guaranteed me she had the details in writing, from the "Deputy CEOs. Personal Banking of both banks. Both of whom remain assiduously unavailable for comment about their stillborn creations!

Although the ensuing weeks have been a total joke, in my usual stubborn fashion I have persisted to the point of having handed over a modest amount of gold coins for a secured loan of lira and a piece of plastic for my coming Asian tour...I decided against actually wandering around the backwaters of Indochina with my shiny...we are kinda in an interim phase between bizness as usual and collapse, so flexibility is key.

The upshot is, the banks are strong on putting out self-serving PR that sounds great, but short on execution, informed personnel, and professional execution when it come to handling the gold-savvy segement of the market...GARANTI in particular is an outfit unworthy of serious consideration for those aspiring to offshore alternatives and I rate IS Bank as a non-starter. Kuyvet Bank is just a Turkish subsidiary of a Kuwaiti oilsheikdom bankster outfit, with a hypocritical PR pretence of doing real Islamic style banking while conducting the usual usurial rip off by disguising their interest with fancy verbiage...gold from ATM? How bout bullshit, straight from the bovine's backside?!? If it wasn't for the necessity of travel, I'd be happy to leave all of them alone.

@joyful. It's the same with the myth of China's official "encouragement" to buy PM's, now even repeated by Casey ("You've likely heard how government leaders in Beijing have been encouraging citizens to buy gold and silver".)

We've all heard it, but repeating a wrong interpretation of a news story, no matter how viral it gets around, cannot replace some actual hard digging for truth and source.

Be a goldbug all you like, but lose your critical facilities at your peril.

Here's the situation that's going to influence Gold.It's uncertainty and we all know that the Market doesn't like that.We're coming into the end of the year and the fiscal cliff situation is looming.So what you say?Well,if you take a look at the numbers on the tax rates,any money you happen to make on a gold miner after investing your hard earned dollars is going to be taxed away very promptly by your political "friends" in Washington.Gold bullion on the other hand is considered to be a "collectable".If the Bush tax rates expire,you could see a removal of funds from the mining sector due to high tax rates on any increased capital that you might make.That increased tax rate would make investing in the mining sector higher risk.Higher risk to your own capital.There could then be a rush from the mining sector stright into the physical holding of the bullion.Will it play out that way or is it being planned that way in Washington?Not a sure thing right now ... which still brings us back to uncertainty in those two sectors.

Money should be a meduim of exchange and a store of wealth. For the past 40 years it has only been a medium of exchange. This will change after the currency crisis, the People will demand it. The Ukraine is one step ahead.